Posting an article, “How Districts Can Seek to Bolster African-American Boys,” on Education Week’s District Dossier blog, Jackie Zubrzycki points out that the poor performance of African-American boys in schools has been documented for many years, but substantive change for that group across school districts has not happened. African-American males continue to be the worst performing demographic in the country.

Zubrzycki describes institutions and organizations that have implemented promising programs that can serve as models for school districts that want to implement comprehensive support for African-American boys:

The Schott Foundation for Public Education (See our previous post about the Schott Foundation: http://wp.me/p1MMyu-1o) – recently focused on push out (high discipline rates that lead many African-American boys to leave the public school system) and lock out (often low-income students and students of color don’t have the same opportunities as their higher-income or majority peers) and advocates for, among other things:

local- and state-level action to help identify and help at-risk students early,

to change subjective and punitive discipline policies, and

to make sure students who are more than a grade level behind are receiving holistic, personalized supports that address social-emotional and health needs as well as academic challenges